


Memories Bleed

by Sloane (orphan_account)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood and Gore, Child Death, Dramatic Irony Abounds, Flashback, Gen, Nightmare, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 20:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14600697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Sloane
Summary: A frank discussion between two Turks bleeds into a vivid nightmare about an assignment gone wrong.It isn’t the first time, it won’t be the last.





	Memories Bleed

**Author's Note:**

> Dates are approximate because the compilation timeline is a mess.

[ ν ] - εγλ c.1971  
The absence of a gun under his suit jacket felt wrong.

Administrative leave. Mandatory counseling. A full investigation by Shin-Ra. He didn’t get that treatment after his first confirmed kill three years ago, but that one wasn’t caught on tape—and it wasn’t a kid.

Footage of the botched assasination attempt was all over the news. The camera only caught the back of Vincent’s head as he rushed the shooter. The public would never know his name or face, all they knew he was on administrative leave pending an investigation. He succeeded in protecting President Shinra, but couldn’t stop the assailant from firing.

The shot went wild, up and into the crowd gathered on the bridge overhead. The news didn’t show the part where the camera tracked up to see a body fall. The official public report made no mention of the dead girl. All was well. The newscaster said a tragedy was averted and segued smoothly into a report on Loveless, the tragic play that everyone was talking about.

Vincent poured far more than a shot’s worth of liquor in his empty Old Fashioned glass. He didn’t want to enjoy any part of what he was doing, so gin suited him fine. His tongue felt heavy and his head felt like it was packed in cotton, but it was difficult to know exactly how much he’d had to drink thus far. Not enough. The bottle was opaque and his overgenerous pours made it look like he loved the vile, pine tasting swill. No other Shin-Ra employees were in the lounge to judge him, because no one in the company wanted to be near any number of drunk Turks.

Vincent didn’t look up at the sound of footsteps, or at the man who shouldered his way into the seat right next to him. He knew it was Veld by his unmistakable, not necessarily pleasant smell—cheap aftershave and expensive gun lubricant. Vincent sniffed. He had no idea what his own personal scent was.

“You should really get some sleep,” Veld said by way of greeting. “Or at least eat something if you’re going to drink so much.”

He swiveled in his seat to face Vincent, allowing him to appreciate his wry smile. “I’m not holding your hair back when you inevitably throw it all up—not again.”

“Oh, shut up…”

Vincent bit his tongue to keep from adding that Veld was his partner, not his father—his dead father, gone almost a year to the day. The upcoming anniversary, with still no answers on how it happened, had him distracted for weeks—up to and including the day of the President’s speech. Clearly he wasn’t drunk enough if his thoughts could go there.

“You know what you really need?” Veld switched tactics along with conversation topics, his tone lightening. “A haircut.”

It was an argument they’d had many times before—not a serious one, just ribbing between friends. Vincent was grateful Veld let the rest lie, if only for the time being.

He smirked. “Your hair is longer than mine, old man.”

They were practically following a script. Vincent enunciated his words carefully. He was good at hiding it from his voice when he was deep in his cups. He needed more practice with hiding everything else.

“Yes, long enough to _tuck back_.” Veld skipped the part where he pointed out he was only two years older. Instead, he reached up to lightly brush Vincent’s long bangs back. Vincent was too drunk to do anything besides blink owlishly at the gesture.

Veld sighed in defeat as Vincent’s bangs fell right back in front of his left eye. “That can’t be good for your aim.”

“Heh, please…” Vincent was blushing, but that could just as easily be from all the liquor. “I can hit a target blindfolded and you damn well know it.”

In his current state he wouldn’t be able to hit the broadside of a chocobo barn, but he was on leave, so what did it matter if he had another drink? He deserved a whole damn bottle after the week he had. Vincent tried to pour his whatever-numbered drink, but only a small percentage made it in to the glass. The rest of the gin sloshed all over his hand and sleeve.

“Damn it,” Vincent hissed. He tended as the hissing continued without him. The sound was coming from somewhere else. He looked around. It was just him and Veld in the bar, no one—and nothing—else.

Veld took both the bottle and the glass while he was distracted. Vincent’s drunken slip-up ironically left a proper single shot in the glass. Fighting Veld for it was useless, but that left him with nothing to do with his hands. His shirt cuffs reeked of gin. Vincent smiled bitterly. So that was what he smelled like—a miserable drunk.

“I should’ve noticed sooner.” He stopped caring about diction, there wasn’t any point. “Should’ve acted faster, stopped the bastard from drawing at all.”

“Don’t start that again.” Veld slapped him on the back with the amount of force generally reserved for choking victims. If his head wasn’t hanging so low, he definitely would have gone for Vincent’s face. The slap forced him to sit up straight.

“You did your job,” Veld said. “Collateral damage happens. Sometimes innocent people get hurt. Sometimes innocent people die.”

No mention of people who died in the course of normal work—the ones killed by them or the wounds they inflicted—because they were used to that. So why let _this_ get to him?

“Hmph.”

Vincent reached for the bottle of gin, Veld slid it further away without comment. Vincent played it off like he was reaching for the bowl of peanuts between them. He talked as he chewed, something he knew Veld hated.

“Why’d it have be so out in the open?”

Veld downed the contents of the confiscated glass and hissed through his teeth. He hated gin, too.

“He didn’t want to give the citizens the wrong impression.” His voice went flat as he recited the company’s tired public rhetoric. “President Shinra cares for and trusts the people of Midgar. Shin-Ra Electric yadda yadda future yadda yadda world.” 

Veld poured another drink.

“Wanna know the really funny thing about all this?”

“Heidegger’s soldiers fucked up worse than us?”

“That too, but the attack wasn’t even about the plate, the reactor, _or_ anything else going on here.” The laugh he uttered was closer to an exasperated scoff. “The shooter was from Junon.”

Vincent sighed. He flicked a peanut at a bottle of bottom shelf rum. It shattered. He glanced at Veld, who didn’t seem to notice. The next bottle on the shelf shattered, as if someone was using the bar for long range target practice.

He tried to remain calm, act casual. “I suppose you’ll be heading there next…”

The tremor in his voice could easily be mistaken as disappointment.

“With you.” Veld raised his glass and lowered his voice. “The ‘full investigation’ is tracing our man back to any like minded friends.”

“But—”

Veld waved away the question before he could ask it. “Everyone needed to see you getting dressed down. We wouldn’t want anyone thinking the President played favorites. They hate us enough as it is.” Veld’s tone strongly implied Vincent should have already known that. He gave the gin bottle a little shake. It was empty. Veld grumbled and put it aside.

“Anyway, I’ll give your gun back later.”

‘When you’ve sobered up,’ he meant.

Vincent put his head down on the bar. The cradle of his arms blocked out the light and muffled his voice. “Thanks, Veld.”

“Hey, don’t thank me yet.” Veld patted him on the back, gently that time. “We fly out first thing in the morning, regardless of how hungover you are, so be prepared to suffer.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

It wouldn’t be the first time, nor was it the first time he passed out at a bar. Veld usually dealt with that, too.

The lounge went quiet. The background drone of the reporter on TV stopped, leaving nothing but the high pitched whine of the tubes behind the screen. Something gently touched Vincent’s hair. It was too small to be Veld’s hand.

He jerked back, his hands shoving him away from the bar before his feet were able to catch up. He stumbled backwards, nearly loosing his balance along the way. He stared at the bar, mouth agape. He was too drunk for this.

The small hand responsible for startling him fell limply upon the bar the moment he moved away. Veld was gone, but in his place lay a little girl in a new blue pinafore—something for a special occasion. Her broken back was draped over the bar, legs dangling over one side while her head hung upside from on the other. She was facing Vincent. There was no life in her dark green eyes.

The empty bottle and glass sat on the bar where Veld left them. Vincent looked away. An image of the deserted site of the President’s speech was on TV, bars of static flickering through it from a poor signal. The girl’s body was laying in the street on TV as well.

Vincent flinched as the gin bottle next to the girl shattered. It splattered blood all over the girl’s pale blue dress, not gin. Vincent hadn’t heard the shot. He slowly walked backwards, unable to look away from the girl. Her long, wavy blonde hair stretched halfway to the floor. Blood—far too much blood—poured around her and over the edge of the bar. The stream it formed flowed directly, inexorably toward Vincent.

The lounge entryway wasn’t far. Beyond that was a short jog for the elevator. He could make it, escape the hellish scene to go absolutely anywhere else.

Vincent turned. The dead girl was blocking his path. She smiled at him, eyes still dull. Blood oozed from her mouth to join the blood spatters on her clothes.

A familiar steady, high pitched tone that made Vincent look over his shoulder. The TV had switched to an Off Air test pattern. After a few seconds the tone gave way to the steady beat of a heart monitor—a heart restarted.

The dead girl tugged on Vincent’s sleeve. He looked down. She clutched the fabric tightly, getting blood on it—but that was what the black was for, it hid stains like that well.

“Don’t you think my dress looks pretty?”

Vincent knocked her hand away and bolted toward the elevator. The doors, for once in his life, opened the instant he pressed the button. He turned once safely inside—an ingrained habit he couldn’t shake even when gripped by terror.

The dead girl was still standing near the door to the lounge. She raised a bloodied hand in farewell as the elevator doors slid closed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an ongoing experiment n effectively writing horror, so please let me know how I did (or if you need anything tagged). I’m marking this complete for now until I pick this back up.
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr as [sayitaintsloane](https://sayitaintsloane.tumblr.com)


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